Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Made in the UK for HR consultants worldwide. You're listening to the HR Marketing Guys Podcast.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: Hello, James here, and welcome to this week's podcast. When someone lands on your website, you have less than five seconds to grab their attention. And that's why your homepage needs to be awesome. So, in today's main event, I'm going to explain the ingredients you'll need to create the perfect homepage for your consultancy. And in today's thought of the week, I'm going to lovingly remind you to market your consultancy on a consistent basis, even if you're super busy. So let's jump straight.
[00:00:38] Speaker A: In this week's main event.
[00:00:44] Speaker B: First impressions are everything, and your website's homepage is exactly that. When someone lands on your homepage, you have less than five seconds to grab their attention and connect with them emotionally. And if you don't, a potential client could bounce straight off your website and onto someone else's. And we don't want that to happen, do we? So that's why in today's main event, I'm going to talk you through all of the ingredients that make a great homepage, helping you to turn website traffic into hot leads for your consultancy. Let's get started by taking a big step back. A lot of my career has been spent in marketing agencies, selling and delivering websites. And when I used to sit down with our clients at the planning stage, I'd explain that every page on your website has a job. And you need to go through each page of your website and ask yourself, what is the job of this page and what do we want people to do? So let's look at what jobs your homepage has right now. First, it needs to grab someone's attention and keep them sticky in under five seconds. It needs to build an emotional connection with them. It needs to encourage navigation and act as a springboard to other pages. And finally, it needs to have very clear call to actions. Okay, so now we've taken a step back and created a brief for what your homepage needs to achieve. We can now start to block out your homepage and think about the different sections that it needs to include. So if you looked at 1,000 websites and their analytics, you would see that the four most popular pages are the homepage, the About Us page, the services page, and the contact page. So if we think back to the jobs that your website has, your homepage is a springboard for navigation. So it makes sense to include these pages as sections on your homepage. And that's why I typically advise to include A Hero section at the top. So this is the bit that you'll see as soon as you land on the website. And then beneath this, I'd expect to see an about us section, a section about your services and how you can help, and then your call to actions, whatever they may be. And scattered between these sections will be lots of social proof like stats, case studies and testimonials. Okay, so now we can deep dive into each section to give you some ideas on how they should be presented. Starting with the Hero section. The Hero section is usually a big image, a big statement, and is the most important section of your website to get right. In order to grab someone's attention in less than five seconds, it needs to clearly answer these four critical questions. So who is this for? What do you do? Why should I care? And what should I do next? So if you go to my website, thehrmarketingguy.com and take a look at my Hero section, you'll see the following headlines. The first is trusted by hundreds of ambitious HR consultants worldwide. So this is me answering, who is this for? I then have my main headline which is get new clients and create a life you love. So this is me answering, what do you do? And why should I care? And then I say join the HR marketing box and I'll show you how. And and this is me answering, what should I do next? And behind all of this is a big picture of a lady with her arms out overlooking a lovely mountain scene. And for me, this picture represents freedom. So there's a nice mix of ingredients here which makes an attention grabbing and emotionally driven hero section which works for me and you guys as my audience and you should try to achieve the same thing with your hero section. If we move on to the about us section, then it would be great to see pictures of you and your team with a nice little bit of text summarizing what you're about and kind of what your mission statement is and what you're trying to achieve. You then need to have a section about your services and I think the best way to present this is via feature boxes, which is great for navigation. And then you need to think about your call to actions and the best way to present these. So typically you'd have two call to actions. Your primary call to action should be to book a call in with you. So why not embed your calendar link directly onto the website making it super easy for prospects to see your availability. And then your secondary call to action should be some sort of data capture. So typically you'll be giving a lead magnet away for free. So you'll need to have a nice section that promotes this with the web form too. And then you'll have your social proof scattered about to break the other sections up. So think stats, case studies, and testimonials, and you can present these as static sections or carousels. So now we've done a very quick, deep dive into each section of your website. We need to talk about the importance of brand. So, for me, there's two aspects of brand. There's the obvious stuff like your logo, color scheme, font, and design. And then there's the values and feelings that the visuals are trying to create. And you need to get both right in order to create a brand that connects with who you're trying to sell to. There's a very famous book on branding called the Brand Gap, and in it there's a quote that says, design is the language of feeling. And I think this is so powerful. And for me, it emphasizes how important brand is and how much influence it has over us without us even realizing it. So if you've got your laptop open right now, take a fresh look at your website and ask yourself, what feelings are you left with after looking at your current design? And if this doesn't represent you, your values, and the feelings that you're trying to create, then it could probably do with a revamp. And finally, let's talk about messaging. So messaging is undoubtedly the most important thing you need to get right on your website. And to help you create messaging that connects with your audience, I advise using the Story Brand Framework by Donald Miller. He created the Story Brand Framework to help businesses communicate their value proposition simply, clearly, and most importantly, powerfully, through the art of storytelling. So through his research, Donald recognized that every good story had the same seven psychological elements. And the Story Brand Framework helps you to incorporate these seven elements into your own brand story that that helps you create great messaging for your website. Honestly, I love this framework so much, and I use it all of the time. And if you would like to learn more about the story brand framework, then check out episode three of my podcast. Okay, so that brings us to the end of this week's main event. First impressions are everything, and you have less than five seconds to grab someone's attention and connect with them emotionally before they bounce off onto another HR consultant's website. And that's why it's so important to make your website's homepage as good as it possibly can be. In today's episode, we've spoken about the different jobs that your homepage has the different sections that your homepage should include. We've done a deep dive into the hero section and we've spoken about the importance of brand and messaging. Look, creating a great website is actually really tricky and it's a never ending job. So if you do need someone to speak to, I'm here to give you a helping hand. Just get in touch and let's book in a call.
[00:07:26] Speaker A: James Thought of the Week.
[00:07:31] Speaker B: I've had quite a few panicked consultants get in touch with me recently telling me that they need new clients fast and they don't have any sort of pipeline. And I've kind of been hearing the same story. They were super busy at the end of last year, so they didn't have time to do any marketing and then they wanted to slow down over the holidays because they needed a break, which is completely understandable. And then we've just had January, which is always a bit of a rubbish quiet month. And for some January can be financially difficult too. And now we're in February, the pressure for new clients is mounting. For me, it's upsetting to sit on these calls and hear this because I desperately want to help. But the reality is that new clients just don't happen overnight. Yes, you can do lots of activity that may get some appointments in the diary, but there's no guarantee that the work you're discussing is going to come in within a certain time frame and within the time frame that you ideally need. So the best thing that you can do is to avoid getting into this situation to begin with. And that's why you need to market your consultancy consistently, even when you're super busy, because you always need a steady drip of new clients. There is never a time when you won't need a new client in one, two, three or six months time. I suppose you can relate to this in a way. As a HR consultant, you're constantly fighting fires, which is cool because it's work, but I bet you wish that business owners were a little bit more proactive and preventative in their approach to HR and as this would save them loads of money and hassle down the line. Well, it's the same with marketing. So in this week's Thought of the Week, I want to lovingly remind you to please market your consultancy on a consistent basis even if you're really busy, because you'll then protect yourself from being in situations like this where your personal earnings are at risk. If you'd like to improve your pipeline and make your future earnings more predictable, then I'm here to help. Get in touch and let's book in an initial free discovery call to see how I can help.
[00:09:24] Speaker A: You've been listening to the HR Marketing Guys podcast, helping you to get new clients and create a life you love.
